Other stuff

Archive for September, 2011

If you’ve accidentally stuck your diced lamb in the fridge instead of a cupboard and when you come to make dinner you find that the lamb is still partially frozen, just slip it into your pocket for five minutes. Never underestimate the defrosting capabilities of your trousers. Do check that the meat is in a sealed bag before hand. Don’t learn the hard way.

The third issue of the small press ‘zine Ferment is now available for purchase. I mention this for a couple of reasons. It’s co-edited by old chum of the site Paul and features writings by him (at least I assume it does – my complimentary copy is still yet to arrive. Sniffle.) and Torquay’s poet laureate Gorgeous George Chopping amongst many others. There is also the utterly self aggrandising fact that it contains a short story I wrote a couple of months ago within its pages.The brief was to write a poem or story no longer than forty lines long on the subject of food, which I think I alluded to in a post here shortly after I submitted the now published work (Friend of Aldrin – I might try and follow up the communion wafer idea at some point). I’ve held a copy in my clammy hands and it is a very pretty object, especially if you like newsprint, drawings and words. Only had a brief look at the picture that accompanies my piece, so I’m afraid I’m unable to name the artist, but they seem to be working in a style somewhere between Noah Van Sciver and David Collier, with perhaps a tiny hint of Peter Kuper in there, which is pleasing to my eye and almost certainly means nothing to you. Not sure I agree with what they’ve chosen to depict, though I think that’s because I still assume that everyone in the world is far thicker than me and won’t have worked out what I was doing. They probably will have by that point, won’t they? Look at me, talking my way out of criticism while not giving too much away about my having done anything. Wooo. Anyway, it’s a cracking picture, the rest of the mag looks great too from ny brief perusal and I look forward to reading the rest.

Copies can be purchased online from the Ferment site, where you can also download a free PDF of at least one issue if you’re a cheap arse punk motherfucker. It’s a bit vague about whether you can download just the one issue, the lot, or which single issue it might be. Asking the editors would be like some sort of effort so I’m not going to bother. Just buy the ruddy thing. Copies are also available from Oxford’s main branch of Blackwell’s (nothing to with me, honest!), up on the first floor, amongst the tiny magazine section, between R and S in Classic Fiction.